"The optimal state of a republic' : introduction -- 'That excellent perfection' : a short history of Utopia -- 'Idle speculation' and Utopian practice : Gilbert Imlay's The emigrants (1793) -- 'Between fiction and reality' : the Utopian past in The Blithedale romance (1852) -- 'A great republic of equals' : postbellum Utopia in Marie Howland's Papa's own girl (1874) -- 'Shrouded in an American flag' : Sutton E. Griggs's Imperium in Imperio (1899) -- 'A bold regeneration' : W.E.B. Du Bois's The quest of silver fleece (1911) -- 'To begin the world over again' : conclusion.
Summary:
This book endeavours to understand the seemingly direct link between utopianism and the USA, discussing novels that have never been brought together in this combination before, even though they all revolve around intentional communities: Imlay's The Emigrants (1793), Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance (1852), Howland's Papas Own Girl (1874), Griggs's Imperium in Imperio (1899), and Du Bois's The Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911). They relate nation and utopia not by describing perfect societies, but by writing about attempts to immediately live radically different lives. Signposting the respective communal history, the readings provide a literary perspective to communal studies, and add to a deeply necessary historicization for strictly literary approaches to US utopianism, and for studies that focus on Pilgrims/Puritans/Founding Fathers as utopian practitioners. This book therefore highlights how the authors evaluated the USA's utopian potential and traces the nineteenth-century development of the utopian imagination from various perspectives.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.